I’ll admit it.  I have mixed feelings about Stanford.  Sure, it’s a great academic institution with cutting edge research facilities (hey, no other institution has the longest linear accelerator in the world on campus!).  But I’ve never liked Stanford’s mascot, which is a goofy dancing tree.  I know that hurts the feelings of some of our readers, but I’m sorry.  I know the tree is not your fault.  This week Stanford gave me another reason to pause when Rev. Scotty McLennan (author of Jesus Was a Liberal) from Stanford’s Office of Religious Life, announced that Stanford intends to interfere with the leadership decisions of its religious student organizations on campus. 

The Stanford Review reports that, to the surprise of most students, Stanford has an all-comers policy that requires student organizations to open their membership roles to all students.  Stanford’s policy is similar to the one the Supreme Court upheld last term in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, except that the text of Stanford’s policy applies only to membership, not leadership.   That is about to end.

According to Rev. McLennan, Stanford now intends to interpret its policy also applying to leadership decisions of religious student organizations.  Rev. McLennan believes this will not affect the operation of student groups:  “You’re not going to worry about the organization electing somebody who doesn’t stand for what the organization is all about.”  But McLennan says Stanford will step in if it receives a complaint that someone was rejected from a leadership position for religious or moral reasons: 

“I think the way it would come up is if a complainant came to us and said ‘I’ve tried to become a leader at—say—InterVarsity, I happen to be gay, and they said to me ‘Sorry we cannot make you a leader because you’re gay.’” Only then does he believe the University might interfere with the functioning of religious groups.

In other words, Christian student groups at Stanford have no right to select leaders who share their same beliefs.  Just another reason I don’t like that tree.

Since this is still the first week of the new year, it’s not too late to make some New Year’s resolutions.  Here are some suggestions for college administrators, based on what happened in 2010: 

10.  Surreptitiously confiscating an independent student newspaper’s bins and throwing them in a storage yard next to a dumpster is probably not a good idea.  Giving the independent paper access equal to other student publications is.

 9.  Stop the irrational prejudice against the Future Farmers of America.  You like diversity, remember?

 8.  Remember that forcing a student to change their religious beliefs to stay in school qualifies as indoctrination, not education.

 7.  Make your whole campus a “free speech zone,” as the First Amendment requires.  This would probably only work if you run a university for Smurfs.

 6.  Don’t treat pro-life students like criminals.  Praying on a college campus isn’t a punishable offense either.

 5.  Hire faculty based on their academic credentials.  Being “potentially evangelical” is not a disqualifier.  On that note, spend some time reviewing a little law called Title VII.

 4.  Don’t fire faculty members for teaching their subject matter.  Encourage thin-skinned students “offended” by said subject not to take the class.  Or alternatively, to grow up.

 3.  Repeal your speech codes without waiting to get sued, like the University of Virginia.

 2.  Re-read Supreme Court cases on student fees, especially if you work at the University of Wisconsin.

 1.  Realize that all-comers policies are as dangerous to the marketplace of ideas as Ford Pintos were to the highway.  Not to mention that they would effectively bar single-sex a capella groups, a decidedly huge blow to campus culture.

I just completed an enjoyable west coast swing, featuring a delightful dinner with law students who are a part of the Alliance Defense Fund Blackstone Legal Fellowship from UC-Davis Law school, a speech on the “failure of elite education” at UC-Davis Law School, and then a debate with Professor Jesse Choper at UC-Berkeley.  I was thrilled with the standing-room-only turnout at Berkeley.  The reason for this turnout? It could have been my dashing good looks, but it’s more likely that this poster made all the difference:

Duke University

Today I participated in a panel discussion at Duke Law School regarding the Supreme Court’s decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.  The event was sponsored by the Federalist Society. Other participants included Professors John Inazu and Guy-Uriel Charles.  About 100 students attended.

Prof. Inazu argued that one of things that made this case difficult for the Court was that important interests (at least in the abstract) are on both sides.  On one hand, non-believers and practitioners of homosexual behavior might very well suffer emotional harm if excluded from leadership in a CLS chapter.  (It bears noting that no non-Christian or unrepentant participant in extramarital sexual behavior sought leadership or voting membership in the CLS chapter at Hastings.)  On the other hand, CLS would suffer real harm if it lacked the benefits of recognition.

Professor Inazu also observed that the case was complicated by the fact that it lay at the intersection of numerous constitutional doctrines or categories:  expressive association, forum doctrine, viewpoint discrimination, government speech, etc.  This, in his view, made it not self-evident how the Court should analyze the dispute.  Professor Inazu also posed some hypotheticals, asking whether they might be able to assert successful expressive association claims — a Christian prayer group, a “gay” social club, a Westboro Baptist Church Legal Society.

Professor Charles’ primary point was that one might reasonably conclude that Hastings set up its RSO program as a means of communicating its own message, and that it thus should have the power to exclude groups whose own messages and conduct contradicted the school’s preferred message.  In other words, this was really a government speech case.  In response, I expressed my belief that Hastings in fact punished CLS in order to express its own message, but that the First Amendment ought to be interpreted to protect private speakers from a government-imposed orthodoxy.

It was a stimulating conversation with many thoughtful questions from the audience.  My thanks to Duke and its Federalist Society chapter for inviting me.

Charlotte Allen has posted a thoughtful essay about the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s unfortunate June decision in Christian Legal  Society v. Martinez (“More Wreckage from Ginsburg’s ‘Neutral’ Ruling,” September 7, 2010).  Very much worth a read.